Half-Life and Deaf Gamers

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Enjoying the latest and greatest titles isn't so simple for deaf gamers.

By Scott Clarke

The original Half-Life was a truly ground-breaking title. So much of what we take for granted in current games, specifically first person shooters and action games, can be traced back to this critically acclaimed effort by Valve Software. Half-Life was notable on a number of fronts (for simplicity I have limited that number to four, the rule of three be damned):

The immersive and (then novel) presentation of story through scripted events.

The game's deft pacing and balance of combat and puzzles.

The introduction of its protagonist Gordon Freeman, a graduate of the Hylian school of non-verbal communication.

Combining the circles of chemistry and PC gaming, creating a 'how people know the lambda symbol' Venn diagram with a very plump looking overlap.

However this is not the story of Half-Life's many successes. This is a story about one of its shortcomings, a story about the millions of people who had no chance of being able to make out what the heck was going on at the Black Mesa research facility. For all of its narrative prowess, Half-Life did not provide any subtitles; spectacularly failing to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing gamers. While (spoiler alert) Valve managed to make amends, catering for deaf and hard of hearing gamers with Half-Life 2, I recently interviewed two members of the deaf and hard of hearing gamer community and learnt that deaf gamers are still often left wanting. This is a story about how these two gamers responded to what they thought was lacking in the industry, providing support to their community.

The original Half-Life was very unfriendly for deaf gamers.

Carl Willetts is the one-man behind the one-man website deafgamers.com (though he was quick to point out that his "long-suffering" wife deserves a mention too). Deaf Gamers is a UK-based hub of game reviews written for deaf and hard of hearing gamers. Review scores are allocated not only on the quality of the game but also by their Deaf Gamer Classification (DGC), a letter grade denoting how accommodating the game is to deaf and hard of hearing players.

The idea for Deaf Gamers was born in late 1999 when Carl's wife needed to complete a thesis for her Deaf Studies degree. It was initially devised as "a games workshop where deaf and hard of hearing people came along, played some games and gave their feedback. The website was set up to do about a dozen or so small reviews (simply commenting on the suitability of each game)… It was only when a copy of Chessmaster 8000 arrived for review in December of that year that I began to consider the possibility of continuing the website." Carl, with the help of his wife, has run the site as a hobby with a budget of zero dollars ever since, and relies mainly on publishers sending review copies of games.

Asked what he looks for when assigning a DGC, Carl replied "Apart from subtitles (which preferably have the speaker's names or at least portraits placed alongside them) a game should give all of its objectives in text and have no informative sounds that aren't captioned or are without some kind of visual indication… Most developers think it's fine if they just subtitle their games but there are actually games which are subtitled and still pose problems. Think of an adventure game that relies on the player hearing a specific sound (a music-based puzzle for example). It's possible for a game to be subtitled and yet still be problematic."

Although no specific game served as motivation to continue Deaf Gamers, Carl and his wife "quickly learned that many were disgruntled with Half-Life not being subtitled." While Half-Life is notorious for its lack of subtitles, Carl calls Half-Life 2 "the gold standard in terms of providing support for deaf gamers." Valve listened to the criticisms from its fans, implementing not only subtitles throughout Half-Life 2 but also providing closed captioning of sound effects and important audio cues.

Half-Life 2's thorough subtitles and closed captioning was a big deal for some gamers.

Closed captioning in games is an issue near and dear to game designer Reid Kimball's heart. This passion was stoked while playing Max Payne. "I walked up to a door and it exploded right in my face killing me instantly... I went back, replayed the sequence, but turned up the volume as loud as I could and I heard voices behind the door I didn't hear the first time. I even heard the word 'bomb' and a few high pitched beeps." Because of his hearing loss Reid was initially unable to hear these cues. He said to himself, "If that was closed captioned I wouldn't have died! Why wasn't this closed captioned? How many other games out there are?"

Although it has received the most publicity for including closed captioning, Reid informed me that Half-Life 2 was not the first game to support it. That honour belongs to Zork: Grand Inquisitor, a 1997 graphical adventure game.

Spurred by exploding doors and a threadbare list of closed caption-enabled games, Reid sought to create "an example for the industry to follow." Reid formed games[cc], a now defunct group dedicated to producing closed caption game mods. Their first project was to mod Doom 3. In addition to closed captioning, the mod featured a visual sound radar, an on-screen display of which direction a particular noise was coming from – think surround sound but with visual cues. The mod was well received, earning a nomination for best Doom 3 mod at the 2006 Independent Games Festival choice awards. Reid now works in the industry and is still passionate about bringing gaming to a wider audience. He recently completed a mock-up of a scene from Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain with full closed captioning.

Please note: subtitles added by IGN for comic effect. He really does say 'Jason' a lot in that scene.

In relation to how he sees the industry catering for deaf gamers, Reid offered this "…I do think the industry is improving, but not as fast as I would like… A lot of games still don't feature full subtitling." Reid theorised that "the reason closed captioning is missing from games isn't so much that the feature is being cut, because I'm not sure it's being put on the list of features to begin with. I imagine a lot of developers are still unaware of it and it doesn't enter their mind. It's got a real low priority to begin with and when something is low priority, it's much easier to cut if it is on a list of features. We as an industry need to give closed captioning higher priority if we want to help more people enjoy the fruits of our labour."

Deaf gamers still face a lot of indifference in the industry. Carl cited one developer as saying that they didn't include subtitles in one of their games because "it ruined the cinematic effect." Campaigning on his blog, Carl also offers an easy compromise: there should be an industry standard whereby the inclusion or absence of subtitles and closed captioning is clearly labelled on game packaging. "The main problem is that game packaging doesn't inform you if there are subtitles or whether the ability to hear is essential in order to enjoy the game and given that we're in the twenty-first century it's a rather pathetic state of affairs."

Hopefully, as the Carls and Reids of the world continue to promote their cause, developers will rise to the challenge and bring more accessibility to their games. For now it seems the industry has its hero, Gordon Freeman, the quintessential silent protagonist, calling out for change. Bring it on, and bring on the next iteration of Half-Life to once again show the industry how it is done.